Inspire Emotion

Happy New Year!!

My sincere and heartfelt thanks to all of you who read here, drop your ecards here, and especially, those who comment here, and have been so supportive through all of my travails this past year!

For all those reading, my wishes for you in 2009:

Good health for you and your entire family.

Love. It is second in importance only to your health.

As much happiness as you can possibly grab with both hands!

Dreams to keep you going; money to keep you safe, snug, warm, and solvent.

Peace in the world, for all of us.

That your 401k recovers from the disaster that has become the US economy.

That your blogs achieve a PR of 6. And mine too. :)

A really, really fabulous year, above and beyond all others!

                Happy New Year!

Ban the Xmas Gift Lists

In recent years, the advent of the holidays always brings with it the advent of mild depression, and I know that this is the case for many people.

In my case, I think it has the most to do with a lack of small children in the house, and missing family members, as well as a deep aversion to “the list”.

I used to totally shopping for gifts for the kids, along with decorating, baking a zillion kinds of cookies, and all those other things that are traditional.  But then, the time came when the freaking list became the foundation for all things Christmas, and there went most of the JOY.

When kids are young, you can get away with out a list from them. You pretty well know what they are craving, and you have the fun of shopping for not only those things, but the things that you know they will love but really don't expect. Once they get older, it's a very different matter indeed, and the Xmas list becomes de rigueur, a mandate from the kids, and shopping for Xmas becomes a boring, unsatisfying chore.

I hate the freaking lists, and to my three guys, let this post be my proclamation of independence.

No more bloody lists. You have been forewarned.

Thankfulness on Thanksgiving

During the Reagan years, I lived and worked in Washington D.C., and I grew to love that city with a passion.

A little background:
During those years, I ran an upscale women's apparel shop in the area of 17th and K streets, aka the business district and/or lobbyist land, and the area where Ted Koppel had his office and where he frequently broadcast Nightline. One of my stock boys was a Nancy Reagan marine¹, on a sabbatical, working toward his masters degree at Georgetown University at government expense, and moonlighting in my shop. (Oh, the stories he told us about working at the WH parties.) Yes, Washington is an odd place, and more like a small town in many ways than anything else..

While I loved and will always love WDC, it is many things, and one of the things it was during the Reagan years is heartless to the plight of the homeless.

I used to wonder how a man could be THE President, and look out from his windows in the White House on a daily basis, and see the urgent need of these poor people, and do nothing to change it. Nothing that mattered.

During the winter, these people slept across from the WH nightly, trying to stay warm on heating grates, or whatever they are called. One of them slept under the awnings over my shop year round. I used to buy him breakfast at the French pastry shop next door. Just a palmier or a croissant and a coffee. I also occasionally brought him some home-baked goodies or a few bucks or a hat and scarf when it was cold outside. Just little things which I did out of both compassion and to assuage my own guilt at not being needy. No big deal.

DC had a huge homeless population, many more than I had ever seen in any large city. Truly. An inconvenient fact largely ignored by the government, and that I saw as highly incongruent That my country, the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world had such a large population of homeless living in it's capitol city was a source of shame to me.

Anyway, while Reagan as a president never held any luster for me, in fact, I saw him as highly anti-intellectual, and a mere figurehead for the GOP, I learned to deeply dislike him when Gorbachev visited him in Washington in 1987. In preparation for Gorbachev's visit, the city "cleaned up" the homeless. They simply vanished from the streets for a week or so. I have no idea where they took them, and they didn't exactly broadcast it, but they were gone. No where to be seen. I was ashamed to be an American.

Honoring Veterans Day

Happy Halloween!